11 - Helping a Friend

Two boys were coming towards Leo and Elizabeth. One of the boys was tall and had long blonde hair, while the other was a little shorter with red hair. What the two of them had in common was the look of displeasure they wore as they walked.

"Liza, why didn't you come and sit with us today?" the tall boy said as he frowned.

Elizabeth frowned as she turned to answer. "Do I need to ask your permission to do things?"

The boy got even angrier as he looked over to Leo. "Leonardo Lentz, huh? You just became an Awakened and you already think you're the most powerful person in the school? Just because some of the girls might think you're cute doesn't mean you have the right at all to be in the elite class, kid."

Leo just looked at him and without caring continued drinking his own coffee while ignoring this boy's existence. The boy was irate to see that Leo and Elizabeth were drinking coffee without paying attention to him and said again, "Liza, let's go to my table. Don't mix with a newbie like him."

Elizabeth didn't even look at him this time and replied while maintaining eye contact with Leo, "What if I say no?"

"You know my dad is going to become an Army Corporal in a few weeks, right? He became a Silver Awakened last month. You better know what's best for you," the blond boy said in an arrogant tone.

"Just a Silver 1 Star and you have such arrogance? Hahaha!" Leo chuckled as he looked at Elizabeth.

People at the school only knew that Leo had a relative who was a powerful and high-ranking Awakened in the army, but as they always saw him taking the bus to go to school, everyone thought she hadn't been such a powerful Awakened. But Leo knew that his sister was a Gold Awakened, and not just a Gold 1 Star, but a Gold 3 Star, with a rank of First Lieutenant - a person with such a title that many in this town had never even seen once in their lives. The only reason Leo didn't have money and live a luxurious life like the relatives of many other Gold Awakened was because that was a request from his sister: for him to learn responsibility and not become an arrogant young man like these kids he was seeing now in front of him.

Initially Leo had been outraged by this, as he thought it unfair to have such a petty life as he had a sister as powerful as his, but after a few years of researching even more intensively about Awakened, Leo understood his sister's attitude and even agreed with it. It made sure that he learned he needed to conquer obstacles with his own strength.

But of course, it wasn't that since Leo didn't live a life of luxury that his sister stopped being a First Lieutenant in the army. If any in or outside the Army Corps tried to do something outside the rules to harm his life, the army superiors wouldn't let them go unpunished.

When the blond boy heard Leo mocking his father, he got angry. Without thinking twice, the boy opened his hand and conjured a stone of ice to attack Leo. As soon as Leo saw this, he was on alert. With a quick thought, he picked up the metal spoon that was beside him and went to throw the spoon into the ice cube. Using the Aim-Bot, Leo aimed at the underside of the ice shard at an angle that would change the flight path to hit the ceiling of the school cafeteria. But before Leo could finish his movement, a bolt of lightning struck the ice cube and turned it to dust.

Leo soon understood what happened using his Wall-Hack, put the spoon on the table again, and calmly went back to drinking his coffee.

"I see that Frederick Mills attempted to use his quirk to injure another student within the school accommodations. I am very disappointed with his conduct." A powerful voice came from just outside the room, causing all the students to still and hush their voices.

Frederick, the blond student who had almost launched the icicle at Leo, turned white with fear after hearing that voice. "Professor Edward…?" he asked, uncertainly.

"At least you recognize my voice, boy." Edward replied in a dissatisfied tone as he entered the school cafeteria. "If it weren't for me feeling a mana fluctuation in the cafeteria, maybe Leonardo Lentz's life might have been compromised right now, and your charges would have gone from being an assassination attempt to an official assassination."

Frederick was even more scared after hearing this. He knew he'd screwed up now. Because Leo had made fun of his father like that, anger took over him and he didn't even think about the consequences of what he was about to do, but now with a calmer mind, he finally realized that he screwed up his future.

"I'm sorry Professor Edward, that was not my intention. I was just protecting my father's honor." Edward found an excuse quickly and said it with an indignant tone.

But Edward already knew how things were going to turn out and soon responded, "So if a person says something bad about your father, you will kill him? Are there no more laws in this society? I didn't know we had gone back to the lawless days where things were resolved by slaying those whom we disagreed with in public."

Before Frederick could say anything else, Edward added, "No need to say more. I will inform the director about your attitude and he will deal with this problem."

After hearing this, Frederick felt his legs go weak. The headmaster was a First Sergeant; not even his father could do anything about it. Maybe even his father could be reprimanded because of what he did.

Frederick's red-haired friend helped his friend out of the cafeteria, causing the surrounding students to start talking about what just happened. Frederick Mills, the most troublesome student in the school had just received a very serious punishment for trying to murder another student! And the most shocking thing was that this student is Leonardo Lentz!

After Edward dealt with Frederick, he just looked at Leo with a small smile and winked his right eye at him and did a thumbs up as he went to get some coffee. Nobody else noticed that wink Edward gave Leo, nobody but one person, Elizabeth Jones, who was shocked when she saw it.

Edward was the most famous teacher in the school, mainly because of his detached personality, never favoring one student over the others or showing affection for one student over any other. With the strength of a Silver 3 Star Awakened, Professor Edward was a highly respected Sergeant in the National Army, and now she saw this respected professor winking at Leo as if to say, "Let me handle this!"!

In disbelief, Elizabeth asked Leo in a low voice, "Do you know Professor Edward?"

Leo just acted like it was something simple and replied, "Yes, we met yesterday. He asked me to hunt monsters for him while he collected some materials in the forest."

Elizabeth listened to this and couldn't believe it. It didn't make sense for a teacher like Edward, a Silver 3 Star Awakened to ask a Bronze 2 Star student to help him kill monsters while he was walking through the forest since just the aura of a Silver Awakened would be enough to ward off all the monsters around.

Only Leo understood that Edward's thumbs up was because he must have felt that from yesterday to today he had risen from Bronze 1 Star to Bronze 2 Stars and was probably congratulating him. But Leo was too lazy to explain things like that and just kept eating and drinking coffee while talking to Elizabeth about everyday things and monsters.

After the break, the two returned to class and continued exchanging some notes when the lecture got too tedious until the end of class. When the class ended, the two exchanged contacts on the phone and Leo went to meet Chris. Today he would help his friend to awaken his Quirk and take the opportunity to do some tests on the System.

Leo knew that his System was very different from other peoples', as he could unlock skills and view and distribute experience points freely, unlike other people who could only see skills traits. So with Chris today, Leo would take the opportunity to test some functions.

As Chris didn't have the money to buy Awakened material, the two took the bus to Leo's house where Leo would lend some stuff for Chris to use.

"You can take these knives. Now that I have a bow I have no more use for them," Leo said as he passed the knives he had used on his first day to Chris.

"Thanks a lot bro. You can be sure I'll pay all this back!" Chris said excitedly. Leo was his first friend at Blue Pearl High School, and the only person to help him fulfill his dream of becoming an Awakened.

"Don't get too excited. You know the probability of awakening a Quirk is low among people? Even though we both failed to awaken a Quirk when we killed the monsters created by the school, it's still possible that you still might awaken your Quirk after killing a real wild monster," Leo said with a serious expression. He didn't want his friend to be devastated if he couldn't awaken his Quirk.

"Don't worry, I already accepted a long time ago that I wouldn't be an Awakened for the rest of my life. This will be my last try. If that doesn't work out I can just get some normal office job and get my money that way honestly," Chris responded with a determined expression.

Leo was pleased to see this and went out with his friend to kill some monsters.

At the city gate, the two guards who had seen Leo the other times were excited when they saw this young man again, especially after they felt that this boy had already reached Bronze 2 Stars!

"Did you bring a friend this time, kid? That's good. It's safer to hunt with more people," Guard Greg said with a smile.

"Yes, very well, getting money alone is very tempting, but you know that a single failure can be the end of an Awakened's life," The other guard said, smiling too.

Leo was surprised at the guards' change in attitude, but just ignored it and walked Chris out of town. The guards, being Bronze 5 Star Awakened, obviously felt that this boy's friend was just an ordinary young man who hadn't gone through an awakening, but as he was accompanied by this boy who was praised by an Silver 3 Star, they just ignored it because they knew that the boy wanted to help his friend wake up, and with the strength that this boy apparently had, if they only hunted 1 Star monsters it wouldn't be difficult.

But what the guards, not even Chris knew, is that Leo wasn't going to take his friend to hunt 1 Star monsters, but rather he planned to go directly to the 2 Star monsters!

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